Mike winced when I winced.
“Not good. You’re a mess,” he said, his thumb probing the collection of muscles and tendons that comprise my rotator cuff.
After working over my shoulder, decorating the upper right side of my body in blue physio tape, Mike went after my neck.
“This is seriously bad, man. Really. Pretty awful,” he said, gently moving my head toward one shoulder and then the other. “Do you ever stretch?”
Besides being a great massage therapist, Mike is soon to become my best friend’s son-in-law, but I let the impertinence slide. I meekly acknowledge that I’ve been busy with other things, not keeping up with my physical therapy exercises, not making time to see a massage therapist or a chiropractor or to get myself into a yoga or pilates class.
“But I’m still running a bit!” I added, cheerfully.
“Ha! The human body wasn’t meant to run any farther than 100 yards at a time,” Mike said, sounding more amused by my confession than alarmed. “But like we say at work, we’d be out of business if it weren’t for runners.”
There was a time when I might have jumped to defend my beloved distance running, but I am wiser now, and obviously older. Mike hasn’t finished his third decade and I’m well into my sixth. The inflammation in my shoulder only underscored the fact that, while my young friend certainly overstated his case against running, his perspective on health and fitness is surely more enlightened than mine when I was his age.
For Mike, who works in a physical therapy and sports training facility in Needham, fitness and pain-free movement come from engaging in a wide range of healthy physical activities, supported by a good diet and plenty of sleep. If a man in his mid-50s must still run, Mike has told me repeatedly over the last few years, it should be done only a few times a week, supported by three good strength-training sessions per week, daily stretching or yoga, some swimming, a little bike riding, some walking, dancing.
Oh, and a massage a week. And not so much beer!
Cross training and nutrition for peak performance are hardly new ideas. Of course, you didn’t see many six-pack abs back in the 1980s, so I’ll concede that fitness training has visibly progressed since I was a kid.
I graduated college just as America’s fitness craze, driven by Baby Boomers seeking a better, longer quality of life, was hitting its peak. It was a time of profound change. A decade or two earlier, few high school and college athletes continued to “work out” after they joined the workforce, but by the early ’80s, gyms dotted the landscape, loaded with iron-pumping, aerobic-dancing, racquetball-thwacking, treadmill-jogging average American adults. During the same era, we saw the rise of the so-called health food store, once a mom-and-pop industry suddenly populated by rapidly growing chains like Bread and Circus and GNC.
Like a lot of employers in those days, the insurance company I worked for had an extensive wellness program that encouraged and supported workers in their quest for la vie claire. Corporations justified paying for health club memberships, outfitting office buildings with gym and locker room facilities, having “wellness leaders” organize lunchtime group runs and aerobic classes, all based on the neat idea that healthier, happier employees will do more and better work.
Hip as it all seemed then, the wellness craze largely fizzled out as a mass movement in America. While many companies still include gym memberships and other wellness-related perks in their benefits packages, and local fitness centers still attract big crowds to increasingly sophisticated and effective exercise apparati, I sense that community and corporate enthusiasm for health and fitness has diminished.
You may see more six-pack abs today than you did 30 years ago, but you also see more obesity, particularly among kids. One need look no further than the results from any road race in New England that’s been around for 30 years to see that, while there are still a few fit and fast runners out there, the average times are far slower than they were in the ’80s and ’90s. Even here in the Valley, a region teeming with cyclists and skiers and kayakers, overflowing with yoga practitioners and Zumba disciples, you also see declining numbers of kids playing sports in school or in local recreation leagues.
There isn’t a villain here. Although I think there are real benefits to having a healthy population, I don’t expect my employer or my government to take responsibility for my wellness.
Still, as my aching shoulder and my pal Mike remind me, the road to good health isn’t always plainly marked or well illuminated. Sometimes, even when you think you’re doing the right thing, you can be going in the wrong direction. Sure, get off the couch. But then what? On such a journey, it’s nice to have some company to help find the way ahead.•
